Last night, I found out that my father died...

[Geen]

To all that have lost, you have my thoughts and prayer. Lost of ones we know or feel connected to is never easy.

[souloffire]

...and despite never getting to meet him, and basically despising him much of my life because of how he treated my mother, I still feel some grief over the loss. In Josh's thread, I said that using positive memories of the past can help overcome this, but I have none of those, so has anyone else here been in a similar situation, where they've lost either an estranged loved one, or a relative they've never met, and still felt grief? And if so, what did you do to overcome it? I'm also a bit sobered by this experience because he died four days before my 23rd birthday, and was buried on that date.

I don't know my father and I despise how he treated my mother. She has struggled my whole life to care for me and my younger brother. He never cared about our birthdays or even if we had food to eat. I found an address on him about 5 years ago and wrote him to tell him my grandfather passed. I begged him to come see me and be a part of my life. My mom told me he was a great artist drawing is my passion. His girlfriend at the time told me he read the letter in front of her and cried. But the SOB never wrote me back. I guess you could say that I grieved for him up to that point but I don't anymore. I don't know if I would grieve for him now if I found out he passed. Would he grieve for me if I did????